Sunday, December 10, 2006

Hello,What a week this has been. Classes ended, finals started, I have two papers due by this Friday. . . I had a final exam yesterday, Intro to the Hebrew Bible. . . on a Saturday. . . I chuckled when I saw that on the schedule.So, getting to the title of this post. . .I'm posting another photo from my sepia series. I really like sepia photos, it emphasizes the contrast, without being as harsh as Black and White.

Hosted on Zooomr

I took this with my Pentax MX and 80~200mm zoom lens. The tree was halfway down a hill, I climbed the hill, and zoomed most of the way in to crop out the other trees around it. I wanted just this tree against the sky.Yours in Christ,Thursday

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Hey all, Here is another photo that I took awhile ago, but just got developed. It is a bit more artistic than my usual photos. This is my first experiment with multiple exposures, and I think it came out quite nicely. Please leave feedback on this one!

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Well, I have been negligent in my blogging these past few weeks. I would like to thank my ghost writer for updating some while I was sick.I just got several rolls of film developed and scanned, so I have lots of photos to post.Here is the next one:

Monday, November 06, 2006

Thursday has been sick lately. So I, his illustrious ghost writer, have decided to attempt to keep him from getting too far behind with the Photo of the Day. He'll just have to tell y'all what this is later.

Friday, November 03, 2006

I have had a cold for the past couple of days. Nothing too serious, just a raw, sore throat, a hacking and unproductive cough. Well tonight I remembered that my older sister was suffering a cold when she was in Scotland, and was made a hot toddy to "sweat it out of her." It worked for her, so I figured it was worth a shot. I had Scotch, I had lemon juice, I had tea, and I had sugar to make syrup. Here's the recipe I used:1.5 ounces whiskey 1 ounce simple syrup1/3 ounce lemon Juice 3 ounces tea (hot)

Wow, It helped my throat, and yes, started to sweat the cold out of me. I cannot stress enough what a miracle the Hot Toddy is. If anyone is suffering from a cold, make one, or two, you won't be disappointed.

Yours in Christ,Thursday

P.S.I used an 18 year old Macallan for the first one, then decided that no matter how nice it tasted, that was a waste of a wonderful Scotch, so I used a 10 year old Laphroaig for the second, it also tasted good, and the smokiness seemed to compliment the other flavors very nicely.

Monday, October 30, 2006

That's right, I now have a store at Zazzle.com where you can buy prints of my photos. They have many different options to choose from for paper stocks, frames, mattes, and glazing. There are literally choices for every budget. Here is a link to my store: Thursday's Photos. There will also be a link in my sidebar. Zazzle promises shipping 24 hours from when you place the order. Thank you all.

Sorry about not posting for a couple days, Zooomr was down for longer than I expected it to be. But, on the plus side they gave all pro users "Pro 4 Life" accounts, so I will never have to pay for pro status.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Sorry, there won't be a photo of the day today, as I'm guessing you had already figured out (it's 11:45 PM). My photohosting service, Zooomr is down. I'll post one tomorrow, if Zooomr is back. I hope to go do some shooting tomorrow as well, mostly film, but some digital, just so I get some more photos to post instantly.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

I was just watching an episode of Penn & Teller's "Bull****!" on PETA, and this part jumped out at me.

“This is a fight for liberation [of animals], no different than the fight for the liberation of slaves, or liberation of women, or any other oppressed group in the past. We have to equate our movement with those movements” ~Some PETA spokesman

“The foolishness of that comment is so deep, I can only ascribe it to higher education. You have to have gone to college to say something that stupid” ~Interviewed radioshow host responding to that statement

Monday, October 23, 2006

I am posting this paper, in part to prove that this is still somewhat a Chestertonian blog, and also because I believe it brings up many important questions about Christian Mythology. I originally wrote this paper for a seminar course on the "Anglo-Catholic" movement of "Radical Orthodoxy."

In the modern world, the word myth is synonymous with the word false. But should it be? G.K. Chesterton wrote:

What are here called the Gods might almost alternatively be called the day-dreams. To compare them to dreams is not to deny that dreams can come true. To compare them to travellers' [sic] tales is not to deny that they may be true tales, or at least truthful tales. In truth they are the sort of tales the traveller [sic] tells to himself. All this mythological business belongs to the poetical part of men. It seems strangely forgotten nowadays that a myth is a work of imagination and therefore a work of art. It needs a poet to make it. It needs a poet to criticise it. There are more poets than non-poets in the world, as is proved by the popular origin of such legends. But for some reason I have never heard explained, it is only the minority of unpoetical people who are allowed to write critical studies of these popular poems. (The Everlasting Man, 70)

Friday, October 20, 2006

Here is the third picture. As you can see, I am trying a new host for my images. If you click on the photo, you can see the image in multiple sizes as well as download the original file. They are also giving me a free "pro" account for one year for doing this, so I am pretty psyched.

Hosted on Zooomr

Taken in my back garden 09/X/06Pentax MX with a SMC Macro 1:4 100mm lensShutter speed: 1/125th of a secondAperture: f8 (or thereabouts)

I have decided to post some of my essays and papers that I have to write for my philosophy classes. I am not going to post the entire paper on the front page, only the first paragraph. To read the rest of the paper, click on the link called "click here to read more" immediately following the paragraph. This will be linked to a PDF of the entire paper.

The first paper is my final paper for a seminar course I took last year on Spinoza's Ethics. In it, I look at Spinoza's understanding of infinity, and compare it to the modern mathematical view of infinite sets.

Spinozistic Infinity and its Relationship to Mathematical Infinity

It might seem, at first glance that Spinoza lived in a “dark age” for the study of the infinite. A time when mathematicians doubted the actual existence of the infinite, and the only book to mention it was on the index of forbidden books. However, Spinoza seems to have risen above these difficulties, and developed a theory of the infinite, though lacking in many ways, was surprisingly close to the modern view. This paper is divided into two parts. The first part is a line-by-line analysis of the most valuable explanations of the infinite taken from the thirty-two works and letters that deal with this subject. And the second part, in which Spinoza’s theory is put in the context of the developing understanding of the infinite.

This is something new I have decided to do to ensure I blog every day like I want to. Recently I have developed a passion (maybe and addiction) for photography. It started when I began to shoot in RAW on my digital camera, and develop the files in Adobe Lightroom. I was able to get some really good photos, but I wanted more control over my focus and exposure settings, and it was just a pain to do on my "slr-like" digital. Well, fortune smiles upon me, my Grandmother just gave me all of my Grandfathers cameras and photography supplies. Among them was a Pentax MX, with the four main lenses needed! The MX is a fully manual camera, the only feature it needs batteries for is the exposer meter, and those are supposed to last for 10,000+ pictures! So, armed with these two cameras, a nice array of lenses, and far too much time on my hands, I'm going to take lots of photos. The best of these photos will be part of my new feature of "photo of the day." For any photo enthusiasts, I will give the camera and lens I took the photo with, as well as shutter speed and aperture settings (as best I remember them.)So, here is the first photo of the day:

(Click to enlarge)

Taken in my back garden 09/X/06Pentax MX with a SMC Macro 1:4 100mm lensShutter speed: 1/250th of a secondAperture: f8 (or thereabouts)

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Dom from bettnet has tagged anyone who wants it with the quote meme. Seeing as I didn't have anything to write about today, I will consider myself tagged.

The Directions:Go here, to the random quotes generator, and look through random quotes until you find five that you think:

a) reflect who you are

OR

b) what you believe.

The Results:

1) "A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."~G. K. Chesterton2) "A room without books is like a body without a soul."~Cicero3) "A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on."~Carl Sandburg4) "All virtue is summed up in dealing justly."~Aristotle5) "I can resist anything but temptation."~Oscar Wilde

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Today is the First Anniversary of Thursday's Trifles! One year ago I decided to start blogging, and set up my free blogger account. Ironically, I was given a very nice gift today. I have been helping someone to fix his computer, and he gave me a Balvenie 50 mL sampler pack. It has a 12 year old doublewood, which has been aged first in standard oak casks, then in sherry casks; a 15 Single cask; and a 21 year old scotch that was aged mostly in oak, then spent the last few months in a port cask. There is no better way to celebrate such an auspicious occasion as with 3 fine single malts. Thank you for sticking with my blog over this last year, and please join me in raising my glass in hope for many more to come.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

This I know, that between finite and infinite there is no comparison; so that the difference between God and the greatest and most excellent created thing is no less than the difference between God and the least created thing. ~Spinoza, Let58-P04.

No one can deny that Baruch Spinoza was a genius; a misguided genius, but a genius nonetheless. His work on Infinity was 300 years ahead of its time, though few people give him the credit he deserves. Last semester, I took a seminar course on Spinoza’s greatest work, The Ethics. I was amazed at the complexity of the work. For those of you who have not come across it, it is all done in geometric proof form. Almost every definition, corollary, postulate, and proposition interlink to form a web that goes from the beginning of book I to the end of book V. True, he does make several slips here and there. At one point, he references a postulate that doesn’t exist; and at another, he declines to give a proof for a proposition, stating it is “self evident.” However, if something is self evident, it falls under the umbrella of a definition in Spinoza’s work, and should not be a proposition. In the end, however, the system in flawed. There is a fundamental difference between Mathematics and Philosophy. I can make a mathematical system where 2+2=5, and make it internally consistent, much like I can make a simulation of the laws of physics after changing a few constants. The system will not be externally consistent, that is, it will not be equivalent to reality. Philosophy requires external consistency, or it is meaningless. Spinoza never proves that his initial definitions are equivalent to reality, and therefore, we do not know if the system is externally consistent. This was not the point of this post. The last two paragraphs show that Spinoza was a misguided genius, with the emphasis on the misguided. What I wanted to write on was the absolute genius in the opening quotation. However, on considering it further, I don’t think there is anything I could add to the perfect simplicity of the statement. So, instead, I will leave you to dwell on it.

Monday, August 14, 2006

I love looking through my site meter. It is incredible that I can get so much information about who is visiting my blog. I just found something better. Site meter is only free if you don't want to see more than the last 100 visits. Google has a service called Analytics that offers all the features of the professional meter services, and then some. It has meters you can use to see how a change on your website affects traffic, Graphs to show which keywords are bringing the most traffic to your site, and graphs that show the "loyalty" of your visitors. It really is a great service. Sign up for it now, while they are still offering it for free. When you sign up, they ask for an invitation code, just ask them to email one to you, and you get it in less than 5 minutes.

As I said a couple months back, I am working on a screenplay for The Napoleon of Nottinghill. I would like to thank Katie, who put all the dialogue into script form. I am working on the direction and the narration, and maybe in a couple weeks, I will be able to post some selections.

I know I haven't been posting at all this summer, even though I said I would. I decided I was too busy with work and other things to give the posts the time they deserved. But, I registered for classes today, signaling the end of my break. I'm heading back to Canada on the 2nd or 3rd of September, and classes begin on the 6th. I think I have a really fun course load this semester. Just take a look at this: (click to enlarge)

So, now I am going to try and get back into the habit of posting every day. I may miss a few days here and there, but I am hoping to get most of them. Thanks for sticking with reading this blog even when I had nothing interesting to say.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Well, I am in the airport waiting to board my plan to Minnesota. BDL still has free wireless, so I figured I would take this moment to catch up on my email, and post a bit. I am really looking forward to the conference, and hopefully I will get to meet some of my readers there. I guess I really don't have anything to post on. . . Well, I will post later on today.Yours in Christ,Thursday

Monday, June 12, 2006

Hello to my long neglected readers, and sorry again about my absence. My sister was married on June 1st (pictures to follow), and work has been pretty brutal in the last few weeks (sorry, I don't have any pictures). Well, those are my good reasons, my other one being I didn't have anything to blog on. . . But that is all going to change. I will be at the Chesterton conference this week, and will be blogging the whole thing. I will also be posting on my experiences of Jury duty tomorrow (well, it is really going to be more of how I try and not get impaneled as I have a plane to catch on Wednesday.) But, for now I will leave you with something I just discovered: "Anglicanism is like non-alcoholic beer, there just really isn't any point."

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Yes, I know I haven't posted in a month, and I am sorry. The last few days I couldn't though, as I had no access to the internet. So, anyways, I am out in St. Louis to help my sister pack and drive back to Massachusetts. Her wedding is in 22 days now, and it is my job to make sure she makes it back home safely.I went to an RCIA class at the Cathedral Basilica, because my sister teaches there, and sat in on an excellent talk given about the Trinity and the Catechism, and got a FREE compendium to sweeten the deal. Now, like doughnuts, there are no bad compendium, but a free compendium is even better. so please permit me a celebratory w00t.

w00t!!!!!!

That's all for now, though I am going to be updating more regularly after I get back home (this Saturday.)

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Hi all, I just back from a Math Conference in Westfield MA (very near my hometown). The Conference was great. My University payed for the rental of the van to get down, and for rooms in the Marriott in Springfield. I heard some great papers on Game Theory, Number Theory, Set Theory, Probability, and the History of Mathematics. One of the talks was on Phi. Now, Phi is a really, really, really cool number! Look at this, how can anyone not find this cool:It is the most irrational number. Pi has nothing on Phi.And Phi has this other cool property called the "recurrence relation."or for the special case of n=1,It also works for n=2, but in that case, it is:(PHI)^2=(PHI)+1 (sorry, no image)

So, yeah, Phi is cool. Want to know what else is cool? The shirt for the conference! I have one ordered, I should get it in a few weeks. I am going to try and sleep now. I haven't gotten too much in the last few days. I will get the blogging I meant to get done, but it will be tomorrow.

Friday, March 31, 2006

I'm sure everyone knows Dali's painting, St. John of the Cross. I have it hanging above my bed. I was looking at it last night, and I saw something for the first time. Christ's shadow doesn't make any sense. In fact the entire lighting on the cross doesn't make any sense. The easy explanation would be that it is a surrealist painting, it's not supposed to make sense. But then I looked again. Christ's shadow is looking down on one of the figures in the foreground. That figure is in a darker section than the other two, leading me to believe that he is St. John of the Cross. I think Dali is trying to say that the darkness that the soul must go through to reach God, is Christ's shadow. I'm not sure where this little revelation will lead, if anywhere. I will keep working on it, and maybe eventually I will be able to give a better explanation of its significance.

Monday, March 27, 2006

I've been seeing this float around the net, and had to give it a shot myself.Instructions: Go to your music player of choice and put it on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question. NO CHEATING.

How does the world see you?Lord of the Dance- Steven Curtis Chapman

Will I have a happy life?Hope- Seven Sorrows

What do my friends really think of me?Never Bow Down- Third Day

What do people secretly think of me?Irish Drinking Song- Dropkick Murpheys

How can I make myself happy?Save Tonight- Eagle Eye Cherry

What should I do with my life?Walk through the Fire- The Buffy Musical

Will I ever have children?Baba Yetu- Christopher Tin

What is some good advice for me?Love will Find you- Jaci Velasquez

How will I be remembered?You're a God- Vertical Horizon

What is my signature dancing song?Twist and Shout- The Beatles

What do I think my current theme song is?Boulevard of Broken Dreams- Green Day

Monday, March 20, 2006

It is for "girlsgotech.org," which is determined to make sure more girls like math and science. Maybe girls don't like Math because it keeps on sending Rays through their chest. I wouldn't like math if it was conspiring with my father to kill me. I wonder how long this ad will be around before they notice.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

I started out at University as a Physics major. before the end of my first semester, I was a physics-mathematics double major. A few weeks ago I made another change, I am now a philosophy-mathematics double major. I found out I enjoyed the math side of physics more than the experimentation, and that if you remove the experimentation from physics you get philosophy. My two philosophy courses this semester are both seminar courses. One is on Baruch Spinoza's "Ethics," and the other is on the "Radical Orthodoxy" movement.I have to give a seminar Wednesday in Radical Orthodoxy on "Mythology, its nature and purpose." My prof hasn't given any sources for this, so it will most likely turn into a highly Chestertonian seminar. I think "The Everlasting Man" gives enough on mythology to write the whole seminar from just that. Spinoza is a whole different ballgame. My prof for that class would love it if everybody took a problem from the text that we have been struggling with, and solve it in or final paper. Because I am a mathematician, I am going to do my paper on Spinoza's understanding of infinity. Another student is a bio-chemist, and is going to tackle the relationship between the mind and the body is Spinoza's work. None of us have any degrees, and they are telling us to go off and solve a problem. I love this school.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

This is incredibly cool, and puts a big +10 for AOL in my books (current standing -3,141,592). The have a new feature where you can watch and download great older TV shows. It does require Windows XP, and Media Player 10 (sorry fellow Mac users), but is cool none the less. Download times are fast, and the picture quality is great, even at full screen. Check it out here. The coolest thing is the episodes of Pinky and the Brain, the greatest cartoon of all time. I am so much like brain it is scary. Well, off to watch "Das Rat."

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

I have received a number of emails asking if there was any way to download the movie I made for lent. Well, there is.1) go to this site2) paste http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF0u1kbm5EA into the top field.3) click download from youtube.4) right-click the "video download" link.5) select save target as.6) change the file extension to .flv7) wait for it to download.8) play in VLC player

I hope this works for everyone. If anybody has a bunch of bandwidth, and would be willing to host the file for me, I can turn it from 8 steps to 1.

Monday, February 20, 2006

UPDATE: The video actually plays now! Just more evidence I should always double check on a separate computer.

I know it is a bit early for lenten postings, but I will be home when lent starts, and have sporadic internet access. I made this video a year ago, because I felt inspired to do so. I worked on it nonstop for a couple of nights, but I don't think I was the one making it. When I watched it through for the first time, I couldn't explain how I made certain effects, or got the frames cut just right. I decided that lent would be a good time to post this, as it can be used as a meditation on Christ's Passion. I hope you find the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in this work.

Yours in Christ,Thursday

DISCLAIMER: This video has scenes from the Passion of the Christ. I chose only implied violence, but the video may still be too intense for younger audiences. This video may not be work safe. I recommend letting the video load completely before playing.

I have been meaning to post on this for a bit, and always just seemed to forget. Awhile ago I found a blog written by a waiter in NYC named WaiterRant. It is very well written, and gives you a small idea of what it is like to work in the service industry. It is definitely worth reading the archives, but it takes a long time.Happy reading!

Friday, February 17, 2006

As some of you may know. . . wait, my audience consists entirely of nerds (admit it!). . . As all of you should know, apple is switching to intel processors. I have to say the benchmarks that are coming from the core duo processors are simply amazing. So anyway, there is a group of hackers that is trying to get OS X to work on non-apple hardware. I don't know why they would want to put OS X into a dull little box, but who am I to judge, some people juggle geese. So, when they were doing their nefarious deeds, they ran across a message from apple hidden in the code. Now this is nothing special, Microsoft does the same. What is original is what apple put in the code. Microsoft sticks to the "YOU ARE BREAKING THE EULA!!!!!!!!!!!!!" style, but not apple. Here's what was written:

"Your karma check for today:There once was a user that whined/his existing OS was so blind/he'd do better to pirate/an OS that ran great/but found his hardware declined./

Thursday, February 02, 2006

This is just too much. A man is suing apple because the iPod might cause hearing loss. That's right, he is not suing because it did cause his hearing loss, but because it might cause it in the future.

Patterson does not know if the device has damaged his hearing, said his attorney, Steve W. Berman, of Seattle. But that's beside the point of the lawsuit, which takes issue with the potential the iPod has to cause irreparable hearing loss, Berman said.

Things like this almost make me believe Social Darwinism is justified.

Monday, January 30, 2006

Katie was kind enough to nominate my blog for the "best new blog" category in the 2006 Catholic Blog Awards. It seems unethical to ask, but I could use more nominations to ensure I make it to the voting. Nomination ends Friday, February 3rd, at 3:00 PM CST.

The BBC has a link to a research group doing an interesting test. Apparently some people literally cannot tell the difference between tunes. This test plays 30 pairs of clips, and you have to say if they are exactly the same, or slightly different. I got 26 out of 30 right, so I guess I'm not tone deaf.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

The BBC has a story on two Caravaggio's that were found hanging in a French church. They are both similar to other known Caravaggio's, but he did like to do multiple copies of scenes. The paintings are of Saint Thomas Putting his Finger on Christ's Wound and the Pilgrimage of Our Lord to Emmaus. The top one is not the version that was found, I couldn't get a picture of that. The bottom one however is the version found in France.

Caravaggio has always been my favorite artist. His gift is to capture all the emotion of the scene in the darkness surrounding it. His greatest work is undoubtedly this version of "The Taking of Christ" hanging in Dublin:

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

I have finished reading through "Deus Caritas Est," and right now, all I can say is wow. The language is so simple, but the message is so deep. I'm not really sure how much I can comment on this. Everything that I could possibly say would seem to be nothing more than broken and graceless ramblings compared to the elegance of Benedict's language. Let me give you an example:

Yet eros and agape—ascending love and descending love—can never be completely separated. The more the two, in their different aspects, find a proper unity in the one reality of love, the more the true nature of love in general is realized. Even if eros is at first mainly covetous and ascending, a fascination for the great promise of happiness, in drawing near to the other, it is less and less concerned with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the other, is concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and wants to “be there for” the other. The element of agape thus enters into this love, for otherwise eros is impoverished and even loses its own nature. On the other hand, man cannot live by oblative, descending love alone. He cannot always give, he must also receive. Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift. Certainly, as the Lord tells us, one can become a source from which rivers of living water flow (cf. Jn 7:37-38). Yet to become such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God (cf. Jn 19:34).

What can I say that would add anything meaningful to this? I think all I can do is shout "Bravo!" very loudly.

What about this:

8. We have thus come to an initial, albeit still somewhat generic response to the two questions raised earlier. Fundamentally, “love” is a single reality, but with different dimensions; at different times, one or other dimension may emerge more clearly. Yet when the two dimensions are totally cut off from one another, the result is a caricature or at least an impoverished form of love.

I cannot add anything meaningful to this, and if I tried, it would lose some of it's elegance. I am not able to comment on the second half of the encyclical either. As I was reading it, I thought it had a JPII feel about it, and I have just read on the BBC, that parts of the encyclical were indeed written by JPII.

I think this paragraph is probably the best in the second part. It is the greatest denunciation of Marxism that I have ever read.

b) Christian charitable activity must be independent of parties and ideologies. It is not a means of changing the world ideologically, and it is not at the service of worldly stratagems, but it is a way of making present here and now the love which man always needs. The modern age, particularly from the nineteenth century on, has been dominated by various versions of a philosophy of progress whose most radical form is Marxism. Part of Marxist strategy is the theory of impoverishment: in a situation of unjust power, it is claimed, anyone who engages in charitable initiatives is actually serving that unjust system, making it appear at least to some extent tolerable. This in turn slows down a potential revolution and thus blocks the struggle for a better world. Seen in this way, charity is rejected and attacked as a means of preserving the status quo. What we have here, though, is really an inhuman philosophy. People of the present are sacrificed to the moloch of the future—a future whose effective realization is at best doubtful. One does not make the world more human by refusing to act humanely here and now. We contribute to a better world only by personally doing good now, with full commitment and wherever we have the opportunity, independently of partisan strategies and programmes. The Christian's programme —the programme of the Good Samaritan, the programme of Jesus—is “a heart which sees”. This heart sees where love is needed and acts accordingly. Obviously when charitable activity is carried out by the Church as a communitarian initiative, the spontaneity of individuals must be combined with planning, foresight and cooperation with other similar institutions.

As I am not sure that I can adequately comment on any of this, I am going to restrict myself to commenting on other people's comments. In the next few weeks, I'm sure "Deus Caritas Est" will be attacked from both the left and the right. Chesterton wrote in "Orthodoxy," that: It [Christianity] was attacked on all sides and for all contradictory reasons. No sooner had one rationalist demonstrated that it was too far to the east than another demonstrated with equal clearness that it was much too far to the west. I think this is what we will see in the next couple of weeks. Of course, being attacked from all sides is always a good indication that you have found the Truth.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

The Conservatives have won in Canada, but they only have seats 124, which isn't enough for a majority. This means, there will probably be another election in less than a year. Oh well, at least they ended the liberals decade in power!

Monday, January 23, 2006

Tradition in Action has posted this picture along with the caption "To show that he is a modern Pope duly adapted to the modern world, Pope Benedict XVI introduces the use of designer sunglasses to the papal vestments."

It was sunny, would they prefer he wore the triple tiara with a big sun brim on it! I'll try to make one in photoshop. I've heard, but not had it confirmed, that Benedict is getting his fashion advice from his private secretaryMonsignor Georg Gänswein.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

I have been trying to figure out how to get audio embedded into blogger for sometime, and I finally figured it out. From now on, my podcasts will be right here on Thursday's Trifles. I haven't recorded a new podcast yet, so here is my third episode. Just click on the image below the description to launch the audio player.

Description: This podcast is just on G.K. Chesterton's incredible first novel, "The Napoleon of Notting Hill."

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Posting classes seems to be popular now, so I might as well jump on the bandwagon.

Physics II: Electricity and MagnetismSame prof. as Physics I. At least E&M is more interesting than classical mechanics. The best part is the E&M lab, as we get to use powerful electromagnets. (Though not "The Sterilizer," or "Big Bertha almost known as The Widow Maker."

Calculus IIFun class! The prof. is awesome, and the material is easy.

General Chemistry IIChemistry and I don't normally get along, but the prof. is good enough that I'll be OK. Last semester we were in a classroom that could fit 50, and there were around 40 of us. This semester they put us the the biggest classroom on campus (Bishop William's Hall, seating capacity 130), and there are maybe 25 of us. I also have 3-5 hours in the Chemistry lab on tuesdays, which is my own cross to bear.

Issues and Problems in Religion II: Radical OrthodoxyThis is probably my favorite course this semester. The Professor is incredible, and the subject is fascinating. Basically, Radical Orthodoxy is an AngloCatholic movement that challenges Postmodernism. The course is going to be a lot of work, seeing as I have two seminars to write, but it is just so much fun!

Spinoza

Lastly, I'm taking a course on Spinoza's "Ethics." Spinoza really is the philosopher for Mathematicians. He uses the geometric method to prove all of his propositions. I'm not quite convinced that this is a valid method, but I'll post on that some other time. The class is taught in "Preston room," which is this beautiful room in one of the oldest parts of the University

I'm all set for another week of the game. If I do some more creative googeling, I can probably keep it going for three more weeks. Today's saint took the easier of the two ways to heaven, and it looks like he had a really bad half hour.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Benedict has confirmed the January 25th date as being the release date for his first Encyclical. I had my countdown widget set to that date from the moment I heard that it might be the date. Right now, I have it at 6 days, 6 hours and 27 minutes (9 am GMT+1) till I can grab a copy. "Deus Caritas Est" looks to be a good read. Thursdays are my easy days, so I can stay up extra late and plough through it, and then post my initial impressions later Thursday afternoon.Till then. . .

Yours in Christ,Thursday

P.S.Tradition in Action has been very quite in the run up to the release. I wonder what sort of craziness we can expect from them on the 25th.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Despite what I said in my latest podcast about not having the talent to write a screenplay, I am attempting to write one for "The Napoleon of Notting Hill." I could use all the help I can get, so if anybody has an idea or thought about NoNH, drop me a message. I just read that a usual screenplay is between 90 and 120 pages, and I feel like I have been thrown in the deep end. (of course, I threw myself in, does that make it suicide?)

I'll try to post updates on my progress, but it will be an uphill battle.

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About Me

Hello, welcome to my blog. My name is Thursday. I am 21, I am just starting out into the world of photography. I love Christ, His Church, my Fiance, and feeling I get when I know I've taken a good picture.